Diary for July: Week One

Instead of doing "In My Home" posts just now I thought I'd try and keep a diary for July...A mix of savings, what I'm doing, what I'm thinking, etc.  I'll jot a few thoughts down each week, not necessarily every day, and post them until I am up to fully writing posts once more.  Fair warning, it may not all be happy homemaking.  It may be gritty and dirty at times.  But it will be a truthful journaling of what goes on in this Blue House.

Monday, July 2:  I slipped out super early this morning and went over to Mama's old house, the one Katie moved into in late April.  We did a ton of work when she moved in but not nearly enough.  Rooms got cleaned up, but closets also got packed full, especially when we'd overwhelmed ourselves with trash and donations.   Now Katie is getting ready to move, I thought I'd get the last of Mama's 'left behind' stuff sorted out and took advantage of Katie being out of town to do so.



I left here at 6am when John went to work.  I took coffee and creamer with me, as well as water.  Next time I'll remember to take a snack, too, lol.  I got pretty hungry!   Let me just say that while I worked hard today, really hard, there was so much good that came out of the six hours I spent in that house.

I relished the QUIET.  I could hear birds singing and the sounds of the neighborhood and the washer humming away but it was more quiet than I've had in months.  The time to sit and drink a cup of coffee while it's hot is not to be sneered at either.  Especially when it's enjoyed sitting in a comfortable chair admiring the morning sun spilling across the floor and creeping to the edge of the chair you're sitting in.

I thought about the house as I sipped my coffee during one of my rest breaks.  It's a comfortable homey sort of place.  It needs to be a home, truly it does.   All these months it has sat there neglected and filled with the unwanted and abandoned things and yet the atmosphere of that house is a happy one, not a shamed relic, despite the grime and the mildew and the mustiness.  I tell you sincerely that houses DO have atmospheres, emotions, and you can tell a good one from a bad one, a happy house from a sad one.   This house has been a happy house.  Happy despite what it had become.  It's a peaceful house.  I don't know a thing about the history of the house.  I can see the scars it's acquired in it's lifetime but I felt it's essence all about me this morning and I wondered at it's ability to BE happy even in the season of life it's been through lately before Katie came in to make it her home, however temporary that has been.

I don't know what fate lies ahead of this house but I found myself wishing it were mine.  I did truly.  The likelihood that it should ever be is so slim .  It needs some work, both cosmetic and deeper surgery.   But I found myself liking the house so well that I could imagine myself living there and being content, despite it's faults and needs that are beyond my means.

I thought of my own home which I've always said openly I have never felt as strongly about as I did the old Railroad Foreman's cottage I once live in...  I do love this house.   I like it.  I chose it.  I picked it out myself.  I've been very happy here for the most part and not so very unhappy for the lesser bits.

So why this longing for another house?  I think it's just a strong attraction to the vibe of the house as much as anything.  I do truly.  That peaceful atmosphere.  That sense of standing strong through time.  An undercurrent of faith that it will be loved once more because nothing else but that could be its fate, it was made to be loved as a home.  A sense of history, because it is an older home.  I suspect it's 1940's or '50's, so not historically old, but old  in a day and age that considers a four year old house an 'older' home!

Mama lived there for almost 20 years.  I don't know that she was happy there nor that she wasn't.  In this clearing up process, I see how horribly wounded and scarred and anguished my mother is though you'd never guess it, if you'd just met her.  You'd have to know her as I've known her all my life.  She will tell you she's never been depressed a day in her life, of the many accomplishments she's had.  You'd hear her pride in who she is.    But it's been in clearing up her house that I have learned, all over again, how sick she is inside, how emotionally ill.

At first, when this anxiety hit me so very hard, I partially blamed the clearing up of the house for it.  It brought back deep memories of childhood, carefully hiding the truth of what we were and were not.  We lied to ourselves, to each other, as well as to outsiders.   So much negative under that prosperous looking surface.  Guilt, anger, fear, anxiety...Emotions that surfaced hard once more for me in this stressful life period.  Yes, I did blame the house for it for a bit.

Yet I realized something deeper after a working session there last week.   I am not as out of control as I'd thought.  I learned long ago that I had to let go of the things that were harming me internally, emotionally.  I have been doing emotional 'housekeeping' in a sense for 40 odd years.  I have learned to do that job pretty well.   I am continually analyzing my emotional responses and doing those things that I know must be done in order to be healthy.  Including medication and counseling when necessary.

For the past several years, Mama has pushed things off on me.  "I can't use this but I don't want to get rid of it, so you take it..."  And for a long time I did take those things she didn't want even when I had no room for them, when they had no meaning or value to me, were unflattering or unsuitable.   I tried hard to incorporate them into my life and into my home.   I grew increasingly uneasy with that role as she pushed more and more things at me.   Eventually I realized that in some emotional sense, she was not giving me the 'thing' to keep but  in her mind, I then owed her something in exchange.  I was, in a sense, her emotional storage unit.  It also meant that when she wanted to hurt someone or argue or be offended, I was the handy outlet.  It was part of the payment plan for her 'giving' me so much.

 Several years ago  I realized I had to set hard boundaries with her.  It was the hardest thing I've done to date, besides walking out of my first marriage and I mean that sincerely.  I had to constantly battle with myself as well as with her in order to determine just where those boundary lines had to be.  To this day I still feel guilt.  I want to honor and respect her.  I struggle with just what that means.  I know what it doesn't mean.  It doesn't mean allowing myself to be devalued or disrespected or blamed for things I never had the power to stop or fix.

So as I sat in the house this morning, I realized that the process of this cleaning is cathartic.  I may be in charge of clearing up what Mama has chosen to leave in that house, but it's not my emotional mess.   It's not my stinking mess.  I didn't create it.  I am not responsible for it.  I do not have to feel guilty nor do I owe her anything except respect and honor.  And the house said so, with it's quiet peace enveloping me as I sipped my coffee, with it's response of sighing in relief as I cleared yet another area and took note of spots that will need to be cleaned deeply once cleared.  The house spoke the gratitude my mother will never express for what I'm doing.

Tuesday, July 3...  I don't expect to write every day.  I didn't really expect to write today but this morning I had an odd dream with lots of people in it, some dead and some alive and some dear and some unknown.  The dream was just the sort of thing a dream is but I met up with a woman I knew long ago,  who passed away a couple of years ago.  I knew her when I was so raw and needy and her soothing spirit was like balm upon my own broken soul.  We talked and talked and at the end of the dream I woke crying.   I've no idea what we spoke of nor why I dreamed of her last night.  She was not someone I would have confided in, but her presence was calm and peaceful in life and in the dream as well, the only person other than Granny with whom I felt that deep peace.

I've missed Granny a lot lately.  I have wanted, these last few weeks, more than at any time in the past 9 years to run to her and just sit.  Not to tell her of my anguish or my upsets or my weariness but just to sit with her there on the front porch, listening to the morning awaken about us as we sipped our coffee.  And if we did speak, we'd speak of natural things about us or of scripture we'd read or funny things the grandboys had said and perhaps, maybe at some point I might mention to her my deep weariness and I'd feel her sympathy and she'd say something that was wise and loving and far more profound than it sounded just at first and then I'd go on back to the daily routine.

The truth is, when she died 7 years ago, I knew that whatever she'd been to me she couldn't be any longer, that she'd made me as strong as she could, she'd given me all her wisdom and love.  I didn't grieve her passing.  I am assured I will meet her again in heaven.  So I went on.  But one day this past week, after a hard and difficult day, I wanted nothing so much as I wanted to go sit in her presence for a few moments.  I yearned for her in a way I haven't in all these years since her passing.  And good sense tells me that now is no time to grieve either but oh, how I miss her!  For just today, for just right now, how I miss her!

July 5, Thursday  I should be taking a nap.  I was up again this morning at 5am and went out with John at 6 to the house.  He always drives to the house with me, waits for me to go indoors and then when I click the car lights at him he drives on to work.   It's a loving thing he does for me, this business of assuring I'm all right and feel safe,  before he goes on to work.

I knew just what I meant to get done today and I finished it all. At least this first pass is finally all done.  It's all been sorted into rubbish and donation worthy and things I feel sure Mama really wants.  The trash stacked in the utility room boggles the mind.  And it's only a portion of all that was hauled out of the house already.  I still need to figure out just what I'm meant to do with the massive amount of cleaning supplies, long out of date.  And we won't discuss the trunk full of fabric that has been folded for so long that it has no worth at all, because there are tiny holes and the folded lines long ago gave way to rot.  But that is the worry of another today.

For today, every closet in the house is empty of  messes and  excesses and there are only a few things for donations in each.    Too much for a car trunk, or boot as I grew up calling the trunk of the car, but perhaps a small rental truck's worth.  I waited in vain for the trash truck to come by and empty the can so I could roll it to the back door and refill it.  I finally loaded three bags in my car trunk and took those to the dumpsters up the road a bit, just out of the city limits, on the same street where Mama's house is.  Had I had strength I could have done that five or six or seven more times and still faced a mess come next visit.

What's left also are the masses of family photos and framed pictures of family members that were left behind.  So many of them have no meaning at all but a few do and so they must be seen to.  I thought a bit about just staying longer today and starting that process but I'm not ready for it.  Not yet.  I think I shall go over very early Sunday morning and try to clear out the pantry stuff that isn't wanted and try to take another load to the dumpsters.  I cannot stay that day, as I shall be needed to keep the little boys while, I pray, the parents finally start painting the house, but I can get in a good two or three hours of work.  It will be a bit less to attend to later.  My time frame for work there is getting thinner and thinner.

I journaled a lot today during my rest times at the house.  I wrote a bit more after I got home.  I'd gone to the bank, between the house and home and on the drive there I had a deep heart to heart talk with God.  Last week I'd picked up my Bible reading once more and He's talked to me a little through the scriptures I've read.

I haven't spoken (really prayed) with Him in a while.   I'd given up reading my Bible, too.  That's how desperately cut off I'd become from all things.  I couldn't speak to Him any more than I could anyone else.  But I talked to Him today, telling him of my need to be nearer once more, of my need to let go of so many things over which I have NO control and loads of anxiety and how very sorry I was that I'd neglected my relationship with Him during this difficult period.  It was a mountain top sort of prayer but cried out from the depth of this valley I've been wandering through these last months.  I told him of my despair and my anger at situations and circumstances and at Him for making me go through this season just now, about my need to be better mentally and emotionally and I explained how much I long to just accept  and not keep kicking at the goads as He pushes me in His ways. (Acts 9:5 but do read the whole of that passage before it).

Now I shall rest.  I shall make myself lie down and sleep a half hour or an hour and  I'll get on with the rest of my living of this life on this day.

Friday, July 6.   Not the day I'd planned...Not even the day I'd meant to start at all.  I woke early, at 6am this morning and had opened the curtains to admire the morning lighting of the day and then I went to sleep and woke at 8 from a dream to my phone ringing.  I'd missed a call from John, and when I returned his call he was short with me over something silly.  I felt misused and here the day had barely begun, but I rushed to do what he'd asked and from there I trudged through the day.  Not upset or angry with John but just unable to escape the feeling of the need to push on when all I wanted to do was to lie down and NOT push or do or be.

Not anxiety.  Just tiredness.   The sort of tiredness that comes at this age when one has put in a full week of work and there is another day ahead.  With children in the house there is always more work ahead.  It is a given, like laundry, meals, dishes and crying.  I remember feeling the same when I was a young parent and there was never a day off and it was hard then but oh so much harder now at 59, which I keep telling everyone might as well be 60 because that's how I feel, older than I am.

I took a break this afternoon.  I didn't announce it or ask for permission.  Adults were in the house and I quietly got up and walked away and lay down upon my bed and fell into a deep and dreamless sleep and awoke 25 minutes later to find that the world had not collapsed at anyone's feet, the house stood still and nothing left undone had gotten up and left in a snit.  Remarkable.

How egotistical of me to think the world would end if I took a much needed rest.  How foolish of me to think of what a great martyr I am to push on when others are doing nothing at all...And here again I come up against the Martha and Mary thing.  Sure, I still  think Martha gets a bum rap from most but today I wonder if just maybe Martha wasn't being a bit irritable.  Poor Martha!  She should have sat down for ten minutes and rested her weary feet and had a cool dipper of water and closed her eyes and just listened, if not to Christ, then to step outdoors into the garden and listen to a bird sing.

I am sure peace would have come to her just the same as if she'd sat at Christ's feet for that time.  How can we be any nearer the Creator than in the place He created for us?  And how often do we read of Christ going into a garden?  Wasn't it a garden where God created us?  Is it any wonder we find peace in the natural world?  Even if that bit of nature is in the midst of a city and the bird sits upon the street sign singing for all he's worth and the shade of an old tree soothes our hot and heavy spirit for that moment of stopping...

I stopped and rested and then I went on, as we all must go on, from beginning to end, we go on and on.